Fight For The Light
by Stray23
Summary: Tim Drake was never a Robin, but a Stray. Being adopted by Selina at the tender age of 5, he never thought he'd be anything than what he wanted to be, but when trouble brews and Gotham needs all the help it can get from its costumed lot, he may find himself making strange choices and working with unlikely allies. (AU for the win. Catlad/Stray Tim. TimxSteph forever )


Tim sighed while he stretched his arms and legs out before pulling on his cap and pulling the zipper on his catsuit up to his chest. "Another night in this crazy town," he muttered to himself before grabbing his goggles from the hanger pulling them on, letting the lenses rest on his forehead before he walked out onto his balcony and pressed the comm link in his right ear. "You read me Gwen?" He asked as he double-checked his equipment before heading out.

"Loud and clear… Kitten," she replied with a short burst of laughter.

Tim let out a frustrated sigh before speaking again. "Only Selina may call me that," he informed before flipping off the railing and tucking his legs up a bit to land on the rooftop a few stories below him and rolling to a stop.

"Fair enough Tim. I guess you're trying to establish yourself as an adult now?" Gwen asked as she monitored his vitals through the suit.

"Of course," he began as he began his patrol, letting the wind and his gut feeling dictate his direction of travel. "Which reminds me, what're you doing this weekend?"

Gwen let out a short chuckle while she typed a message to Selina on her phone. "Selina and I were planning on having a girls' weekend. You interested?"

Tim shuddered a bit as he came to a halt at the edge of a roof and shook his head before looking around. "You know what, I... Hang on," he said as his voice became stern and a bit harsher. "I think I'm witnessing a 211," he informed as he leaned forward a bit to watch some crooks at the corner of a back alley.

"Some of us don't speak police code," Gwen informed with a soft sigh as she rubbed her temple. "I know you can take care of yourself, but this is more of a bat problem. Shouldn't you leave this to them?"

"I'm sure one or more of them will show up when the time is right. Besides, I don't think this can wait," he stated as he made his way onto a roof overlooking a maze of back alleys, only to find... A drug deal. 'Typical,' he thought to himself. He paused for a moment and looked again as his heart dropped a bit. He could already tell that at least two of those "criminals" were school kids. Shaking his head a bit, he dropped down and proceeded to quickly dispatch them. The first one tried to get him with a knife, but Stray ducked a little, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it, smirking a bit when the man cried out in pain before he brought his back foot around for a spinning kick to his jaw and knocking him out. The next attacker was a bit clumsy with his punch, so Tim grabbed his arm, quickly put him in a hammer lock and pushed himself back, smashing the man's head into the wall before letting the man collapse at his feet. After easily dispatching the remaining two, he spotted a bag on the ground, picked it up and eyed the contents with a frown before grabbing the dealer by the collar of his short and forcing him against the wall. "Where'd you get this!? I want an answer," he told the man through grit teeth.

Several minutes of bad jokes directed towards his suit and his sexual orientation forced Tim to knock the man unconscious with a forearm shot before letting out a sigh. "Things would probably easier if I was working with the Bat," he muttered to himself before tucking some of the drugs into a pouch in his utility belt before dragging the losers out for the police to find before continuing on his route. Tim shook his head a bit as he scaled to the roof with the use of his own cat-grapple before continuing. After a moment of thinking, he stopped in his tracks and wondered where Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl or Robin was. This was up there alley, but so far there was nothing. 'Sure Nightwing bounces back and forth between Gotham and Blüdhaven, but the others are usually active for hours…" he mused to himself.

Deciding to call his crime fighting night over, he ran and leapt over several rooftops before his penthouse came into view. 'I really need my own Catmobile… Or at least a Catcycle,' he thought as he pulled out his grapple gun and fired it at the railing on the balcony. He reached out with his free hand and hoped over the railing before disconnecting the line and walking into his home. As he walked over to his small mainframe, he tossed his grapple gun and his cap onto the nearby table before plopping down onto the seat. Nothing fancy here, just a large screen in the center of eight smaller screens circled around it with a large modem connecting Tim to every available news source and even some private networks around the world. He tapped the power button on the modem before activating a Bluetooth earpiece and calling his fence.

"Hey Gwen, you got a moment?" He asked as his screen flashed to life before he started digging for information regarding Gotham's recent criminal activities.

"What've you got for me?" She asked as she prepared to obtain a price for his obtained good.

"This isn't what you think Gwen. I busted up the drug deal and found one of the kids carrying some kind of drug that's unlike anything I've seen before," he told her. His time on the streets had taught him a few things and he most assuredly knew what was what, even though he kept his hands clean of such things. "If I send you a sample, can you try and uncover some of the chemicals in its makeup for me?" He asked while preparing himself for any arguments from her.

He heard what he thought was a sigh from Gwen's end and knew that she wasn't totally on board with his whole crime-fighting thing. "Tim… I know you and Selina occasionally fight for the little people, but I'm a bit worried that you might've thrown yourself into something a bit more dangerous than a simple mugging. What if you get seriously hurt out there, or worse… What if you die Tim? What am I supposed to tell Selina?" Gwen asked in a remarkably calm fashion.

"I won't die Gwen. I'm just going to gather up a few more bits of information, then pass it along to the Batclan," he informed her as he leaned back in his chair a bit before sending her a scan of the contents.

"… Fair enough," she replied as she got to work. "It'll be an hour or two before the results are in," she informed as she immediately got started on breaking the contents down, "So try to keep yourself occupied while you wait."

"Will do," he told her as he stared out the window to his side with an uneasy feeling. He didn't tell her since he didn't want to worry her so much, but those drug dealers were wearing an emblem. He hadn't seen it before, but the fact that they had one seemed to indicate a deeper mystery, one he that he was sure would plague Gotham a lot more in the days to come.

**Stray's origins next ;)**


End file.
